Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a control method therefor, and a storage medium, and in particular to an image forming apparatus that performs a firmware update, a control method therefor, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
An update technique that updates firmware, which is executed by an image forming apparatus, using an update program, and a difference update technique that, when firmware for an image forming apparatus is comprised of multiple modules, updates only necessary modules among a the plurality of modules are known.
In recent years, the number of image forming apparatuses connected to an update program distribution server via a network has been increasing, and in some forms, to update firmware for an image forming apparatus, applicable firmware is selected from many pieces of firmware registered in a server, and an update program corresponding to the selected firmware is obtained.
Moreover, some firmware for image forming apparatuses mentioned above have functions added for specific users or have special specifications customized so as to establish stricter security specifications, and a proper update is required to be performed for the firmware with the special specifications as well. Accordingly, for example, there has been proposed a technique that determines whether or not to update firmware based on the dependency relationship between programs distributed from a server and programs installed individually without being distributed from the server among programs of firmware (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2011-242891).
According to the technique described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2011-242891, however, it is not determined whether or not a program distributed from a server among programs of firmware is a customized program with special specifications or a program with normal specifications. Thus, when downloading firmware from the server and transferring the same to an image forming apparatus, a user has to check if the firmware for the image forming apparatus is customized firmware with special specifications. Further, even when a serviceperson visits a user and updates firmware, firmware with special specifications mentioned above is updated to firmware with normal specifications due to human error, and as a result, security specifications of the firmware may not be maintained.